Police raid and shut down paper in Somaliland

Nairobi, December
16, 2013--Police in the semi-autonomous republic of Somaliland on
December 13 raided the Hargeisa offices of the critical independent daily Hubaal,
arrested two staff members, and ordered the publication to be shut down,
according to news reports. This is the third time the paper has been targeted
this year.

Police told Hubaal
staff to turn off their cellphones, and ordered them to leave the offices,
according to news
reports. Mustafa Mohamed, a reporter, and Osman Ahmed, an IT specialist,
were arrested, but were released today with no explanation.

Mohamed Ahmed Jama,
managing director of the paper and the owner of Hubaal Media Network, which
publishes the paper, has gone into hiding, a representative of the
Somaliland Journalists Association told CPJ. The offices were closed today. It
is unclear if the paper will resume publishing.

Somaliland Police
Commissioner Gen. Abdullahi Fadal told
local journalists that police had a court warrant allowing them to close the
offices because Hubaal had recently published stories that were
dangerous to the country's internal security.

Hubaal had published a story that claimed the police were divided into
two rival groups. The police commissioner denied
the allegations on public television the day before the raid, local journalists
said.

"Authorities must put an end to this repeated harassment of
journalists at Hubaal," said CPJ East Africa Representative Tom Rhodes.
"Somaliland will never achieve its democratic aspirations if the press does not
feel empowered to report critically on the government."

In June, the
Attorney General filed
criminal charges against Mohamed and Hassan
Hussein, editor of Hubaal, and suspended
the newspaper for more than a month on defamation charges. Police detained
Mohamed and Hassan for one day a week later, local journalists said. In August,
President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud issued a presidential pardon, dropping all
charges against Mohamed and Hassan.

Two masked gunmen raided
the Hubaal offices on April 24 and fired at Mohamed, whose arm and
finger were broken in the attack, according to news reports. The gunmen were
later identified as police officers. The attack followed a series of critical
articles published in Hubaal that accused the government of nepotism and
misuse of office.

Authorities arrested
one of the gunmen implicated in the April raid on Hubaal, but he was released without being charged and without a
court hearing, local journalists said. The Military Court Chairman
Brigadier-General Yusuf Farah claimed the gunman, Ahmed Hassan, could not be
held for more than 180 days since the complainants had not followed up with the
case, according to news
reports.

Journalists staged a
protest over Ahmed Hassan's release on December 3, according to news reports.
But police detained
four journalists for six days on charges
of holding an illegal protest, local journalists told CPJ.